Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. Tiananmen Square. July 2006. One year after "Delegation."

This is not an essay on the Communist Party of China (CPC). It’s just acknowledgement of its 90 years of existence and to provide a link to a National Public Radio (NPR) story on the anniversary. And to highlight a true tale of mine that winds up and crescendos (if that’s the word) with an analysis of Communism in China provided to me by a local government official. Here’s the link to the NPR story: After 90 Years, Graft Threatens China’s Communists. The NPR piece is both text and audio. Here’s an excerpt:

. . . The pair was detained, and while they were in custody, their house was torn down. She believes the ordeal was a factor contributing to the deaths of her mother and her father-in-law. Her verdict on the Communist Party is scathing.

“It’s rotten to its roots. They don’t care how many laws they break,” she said. “Nationwide, how much farming land has been taken from us? What are we farmers supposed to eat?”

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Many of you who are regular visitors or subscribers to this blog have already read my piece, “Delegation,” which chronicles some moments in time during a 2005 visit of mine to Beijing and parts north. The story contains everything you’d want to read about concerning a business trip to China — Jade Buddhas and elaborate massages and such. But it winds up in the back of a car with a local government official discussing Communism. I think it ties-in quite well with the NPR piece. Mind you, I’m just reporting what I heard, not analyzing.

“China tried Sunday to defuse tension over a recent North Korean attack on South Korea by proposing an emergency meeting in Beijing, hours after the U.S. and South Korea launched navel war games in a united show of force. . . Japan will closely coordinate with Seoul and Washington in its response to China’s proposal, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama told reporters in Tokyo. . . Washington and Seoul had been pressing China, North Korea’s main ally and benefactor, to help defuse the situation amid fears of all-out war. . . .”

A little more than five years ago, in northeastern China, not so far from its border with North Korea, I had an interesting conversation with a “local government official” that I cannot help but remember whenever things flare-up between the Koreas and China intervenes in an attempt to bring down temperatures. That conversation comes at the end of this recounting of that part of a larger visit to China, “Delegation”, from which the title of this post comes.

Anshan Market. July 2005.

. . . Then, to get the conversation going in a bit brighter direction, I said something like, “Well, I think that China can be very helpful to the United States and North Korea because right now we’re very angry at each other, but China can be a good go-between.” In Asia, this is a Big Deal, a role of great responsibility, and often honor.

[Local Chinese Government Official, “Tim”] said, “Thank you. But North Korea is very angry at us right now.”

Since the Democratic (sic) Republic of North Korea, as well as its relations with its big brother, China, is in the news a lot these days, I thought it worth while to highlight this story, a true one: “Delegation.” The events related here took place in the summer of 2005, during my first trip to China.

Main Entrance, The Forbidden City. Beijing. 2005.

Following the excerpt below, please see a couple of photos from the Jade Buddha temple of Anshan.

The new temple, the Jade Buddha, the new jade mall, none of this was bad. But the whole scene had a decidedly contrived, Epcot-esque feel to it. I halfway expected to find a log flume ride behind the temple’s main hall. Yet the locals were trying. And jade had, indeed, been an important and venerated area resource and commodity since time out of mind. Credit should be given where it’s due. The Very Important Officials, these people who shepherded us to the temple and who proudly showed off their Jade Buddha and who took us to the nearby jade mall, were kind-hearted and enthused about the new leaf their hands were collectively turning over. They wanted us to feel welcome and to return home and say nice things about their city. And I was happy to oblige. They also wanted Chinese tourists, who would certainly make up the vast majority of visitors browsing through all of jade jewelry, boxes, bowls, 3-D landscapes, dragons, Guanyins, Hoteis and various other figures from history and legend and Faith; carvings large and small, bulky and delicate, made to impress visitors, to intrigue and entice them, and, ultimately, to turn them into buyers.

Back at the temple, I had seen something more poignant when I watched the resident priests, just outside the main hall which housed the Jade Buddha, instruct the many Chinese tourists on how to light their long, red votive candles and offer-up prayers. These were people who had grown up in a country where religion had been frowned upon at least, and persecuted at most. So in their forties and fifties and even older, they were being taught how to go through rudimentary devotional motions that their Buddhist brothers and sisters in other Asian countries had learned as toddlers. I wish them all, the city, its leaders, its residents, its visitors, the best of luck with all of this. . . .